Plastic Fantastic: Mitt Romney Leads the 2012 Pack

Unrelenting earnestness gets depressing after a while, and this has been a year of unrelenting earnestness in politics — of the policy sort from the Democrats, and the strategic sort from the Republicans. Enough! We need a good dose of Aquanetted pompadour, an hour in the glow of a glued-on, professionally whitened smile, a deep-fried slice of shameless flip-floppery, served on white bread with a side of pander. Mitt Romney, it's good to have you around.

And, you know, Mitt really is around this week, at least in the commentosphere. On Tuesday, Public Policy Polling showed him in the lead among potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates, the National Journal put him atop its presidential power rankings, and this morning the Associated Press has him holding strong against Mike Huckabee (who's not running). Let's unleash the keyboards, shall we?

David Frum says the numbers are a reminder that moderate Republicans not only exist, they still dominate the party. I think that's right — but I think Daniel Larison is righter in pointing out that the path to the nomination has forced Mitt (okay, has suggested to Mitt that it's the tactical thing to do this year) to act like a Tea Partier... a stance that's going to be hard to flip-flop on yet again to win back moderates and independents, even for the nation's premier practitioner of the art.

I can recall a single instance in my lifetime of a party's nomination process actually feeling like a choice between significantly different alternatives: 2008, Democratic, Obama versus Clinton. We're in for another, I think: 2012, Republican, Romney versus Daniels. I'd prefer Mitch, but I'd bet on Mitt. And I'd bet on him doing anything, anything, to fire up the far-right base and distinguish himself from any Republicans selling themselves as moderate, pragmatic, willing to compromise, etc. Which will probably win him the nomination — and will leave the GOP with an already charmless candidate in the position of having either obviously faked his way into the job, or genuinely turned from a broadly popular moderate into a raving extremist in the course of three short years.

That, of course, echoes the existential question about the GOP as a whole today: Is its sudden extremism cynical strategy... or is it, in fact, the reality? The party was able, effectively, to punt on answering that question this year because it was able to field candidates from all walks of Republican life. There was someone for everyone.

In 2012, the GOP gets to field one candidate. It's going to be hard to hide the insanity if insanity is chosen. And hard to hide the fakery if that's the choice.

Bonus Food-for-Thought Item: Other than the Republican resurgence, the political story of the year was the Citizens United decision and its first real-world test. Essentially, Citizens United allows corporations (including unions, non-profits, and incorporated individuals) to limitlessly and anonymously fund political advertising so long as the advertising is not coordinated with any given candidate for office. And spend they did this year, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That number may reach the billions in 2012. Is anyone a more likely candidate to receive anonymous corporate backing than ex-businessman Mitt Romney? Something to watch as the nomination race gets going.

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